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"Yes?" he called. "What is it?" |
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"Ian, this is Salisbury. I an sorry to break your rest, but I must speak to you." |
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"Geoffrey!" Ian cried, leaping out of bed and running into the next room. |
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Alinor was not two steps behind him, holding a hastily snatched up blanket around her. "What ails him?" she asked. "Can he not be wakened? Is he blind? Dizzy?" |
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"Geoffrey is very well," Salisbury assured them, looking from one worried face to the other. "God has been good to me, to place him in such loving hands." |
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From time to time in the past, Salisbury had tried to circumvent his brother's spite against one man or another. When he could not succeed, he had shrugged and put the matter out of his mind. John was more dear to him than other men. If he did not know his brother's true character, he at least knew enough of it to understand that he must accept what he could not changeor abandon his brother completely. Now, for the first time since they were small children, Salisbury considered applying active pressure to John. He owed Ian a debt; he loved the man for himself; moreover, having seen Geoffrey again after a parting of some months, he was determined that his son would grow to manhood under Ian's tutelage and no other. Geoffrey was becoming what a man dreams a son will beand seldom are such dreams realized. |
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The letter Salisbury had read had made one thing clear. John intended Ian should dieand he did not really care if Geoffrey died with him. The far uglier purpose underlying the words in the letter, Salisbury did not see. That was partly because he could not yet permit himself to believe John's real intentions. In addition, the kind of jealousy that motivated them was so foreign to Salisbury's nature that he could not conceive of any motive John could have for harming his son. There remained to him only two pathsremove Geof- |
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